HAPPY HALLOWEEN

hocus pocus

Ugh it's only a matter of time before I get hit by a car. I can't believe I'm missing Halloween, this will be the first year that I haven't dressed up. The students are trying to have a party at their compound but Christy and I were invited to hang out on a boat at night with the Peace Corps group. I love our movie channel, they are playing all the Scream movies over and over this weekend.

Mr. Krab

Bushbuck

Oops! I inked!

I was swimming in the ocean after drum lessons today and when I looked down I saw a squid! I didn't know if it was alive or not because it was floating kind of weird so I grabbed it and started to pick it up. AND THEN IT INKED! Seeing a squid ink was probably the greatest moment of my adult life.

In the last post I wrote about the school in Bakau that I was going to give supplies to because my lessons are there and my drum teacher has a shop in the community center. Well here's a picture of the school. I visited during the morning break, and the kids were really cute. They were really excited that I wanted to see their school. Some of them were learning how to multiply by 5's.
Some of the students in front of the school. Hopefully when I visit next week I'll be able to see if they are actually using the pencils and whatnot.

Mail Time

Thanks for the package Mom! I have tootsie pops now!

She also sent me a lot of school supplies. I think I'm going to take the supplies to the community center in Bakau. Some Englishmen donated some money to the community and they build a little shed that is being used as a school. It's really depressing looking and extremely small. I don't think more than 25 people could comfortably fit inside of it but the school has over 100 students....I'll take pictures of it on Thursday

futbol

On Kairaba Ave, right across the street from my apartment, the Africell cell phone company set up a HUGE screen on the front of their building and are broadcasting random music events and today's soccer game between Spain and the US. Hundreds of people are standing in the street to watch the game. It's like Gambia's version of Times Square.

I <3 Rhizophora mangle

I went on a field trip with the ecology class to Tumani Tenda eco tourism camp. Tumani Tenda is a village and a good example of a community based conservation project. The whole community works together to work the farm, manage the land, build, and run the tourism projects. Everyone has a job but all the people in the community work together to complete all the tasks. People can visit the camp and go on forest walks, boat rides in the mangroves, birdwatching, even make honey. A guide told us that there are Africa manatees in the water but that the best time to see them is at night when the moon is full.

http://www.tumanitenda.co.uk/

I frickin love mangroves! So much so that when I was in Costa Rica I did my independent project on the mangroves in the Puntarenas region. This picture is of red mangroves, which have the characteristic prop roots. There were some buttonwoods, or white mangroves, there too but I learned that there are no black mangroves in the Gambia.

Spiny orb weaver spider
They're on a boat!

meh

I finally had a monkey poop on me, which I guess was actually a good thing since I was out there looking for poop. Spent my Friday evening handwashing my clothes in a bucket. Fun times.

I would really like a hamburger right now. I've been surviving on easy mac, peanut butter, and potatos. Today I even got to experience the joy of eating potatos in three forms - baked, fries, and potato salad. I need a steak. Or three.

Seeray's Birthday

What is junk butter fish???
It was Christy's birthday yesterday. We went to a really fancy Indian restaurant (hot towels = culture shock) for dinner and then we went to Senegambian for music, drinks, and dancing. The usual.

Had drum lessons today and after I fell asleep on the beach instead of going to the student's language class. That may have been due to the fact that I went to bed at 6AM. But also the sand was so comfy.

Tey talaata la - Today is Tuesday

BYRD

Yesterday:

1. Fell into a pitfall trap.

2. Did night research.

2b. Saw zero bushbabies.

3. Swam through 6 ft tall elephant grass.

4. Stood on ant swarm.

5. Ants crawled in my pants.

5b. Took off pants.

5c. Yelled a lot.

5d. Pulled out ants.

Today:

1. Learned that it takes 1 hour to photocopy something in the Gambia.

2. Had language class.

2b. Learned how to say "If we go to Abuko on Sunday I will catch a monkey for you." = "Sunu demee Abuko dimas dinaa jaapa golo pur yow."

3. Did a pencil drawing of a malachite kingfisher for the Abuko brochure.

Nyangkongkorongmo

Played with a chameleon and saw a pair of pygmy kingfishers today while doing research. I love seeing cool animals.

NOT MY PHOTO...but this is what pygmy kingfishers look like. Beautiful.
(My photo) Straight chillin'.

(My photo)

Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon
You come and go
You come and go
Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dream
Red, gold and green
Red, gold and green

FRIENDS & ATAYA!

Yusman & Me. Holland tourists in the background who I gave ataya to.
Ataya is just caffeine and sugar. Delicious.
Yusman mixing the ataya. You pour it back and forth between cups so it gets frothy and mixes the sugar. You do this for a long time. Instead of "cheers" you clink the bottom of the glasses, then the top, then slide the glasses down each other while saying "lama lama idea kinding kondon lama lama idea." Which basically means something like "Enjoy, smile, and have a good time."
Seeray & Abdoul!
Abdoul & Me in his juice stand.

family allogrooming

Mom print this out for pre-k please

I really love Africa

my purple smoothie
hornbill!!!
For the record, I was there first.

Man duma tourist. Dama jangakat.

This weekend is just awesome. I love it here so much. Everyone is great.

Worked at Bijilo yesterday and watched some tourists feeding peanuts to the monkeys. It was so bad, the monkeys were sitting on this dude's shoulders. The monkeys are going to get weird parasites and not be able to forage for themselves and then get fat and die. Walked to the beach after and fell asleep on the sand in my field pants. Woke up, had some ataya with these three guys and Elena, and then walked home carrying honeysuckles. My friend Musa called me and said he was collecting me from my apartment. It's weird driving in cars after taking bush taxis everywhere. Went to C-Block with 2 students and Musa + his friends where we bought a $3 box of wine from this guy who sells alcohol out of his compound and sat in the street drinking with the other customers. Then we drove to Senegambia in a presidential car and got waved through all the highway checkpoints. We listened to some live music and danced at WOW a whole lot. Drove to Musa's friend's house at 3 am. I fell asleep on a random mattress and was woken up only to see three large dudes eating a huge pot of ramen noodles and rocking out to Celine Dion. Then I was handed a banana they had just picked off their banana tree. It was delicious.

I can't explain today but it was really nice. I went swimming, walked the beach with Christy and just met cool people who I would actually want to hang out with later. They work the beach juice stands and we had some ataya with them. We found out that they make baobab milkshakes.

This post seems really incoherent. Oh well.

Slaughter

I went to a naming ceremony at Awa's compound today because they always name the baby on the eigth day. First some of the baby's hair is cut off and oats and kola nuts are put in a bowl with water. Then there are prayers and blessings. Everyone is named after someone already in the family. One of the guys asked if we wanted to see a slaughter. So I went back and watched them kill the goat. Then he asked me to help him so I stood there and held the goat's legs apart while he skinned and de-organed. They found out that I was never officially named so I had a mini ceremony. They cut a piece of my pony tail off and said the prayers and now I am 'Umi Njie.' Awa let us try sour milk, which is actually a delicious yogurt type thing, and a dish that is rice and groundnuts pound together and then cooked together for a very long time.

After the ceremony I had drums lessons on the beach with Lamin. My drum is great. He carved a giraffe onto my drum and edged it in dark black goat hair.

My drum!

The baby with Kelly before the naming ceremony.
The other pictures are way too graphic and would make some of you hate me if I posted them.
Beautiful.
I'm helping!
Cutting my hair for my naming ceremony.
The mom of the baby.

FOOD. CIBO. COMIDA.

About an hour ago I smelled the worst I have ever smelled.

It was really surprising that I could smell that bad. Crazy forest.

After dinner, Christy and I went to La Parisienne, a cafe that sells desserts, and I had the best ice cream in all of the Gambia. It was $1 a scoop but it was so delicious. I went up to the owner guy (this was before I had a shower) and thanked him for making such wonderful ice cream and making my day better. I'm going back tomorrow. On the third visit Im going to ask if I can learn how to make it because I found out that they make the ice cream in the back of the cafe. Hopefully I don't scare him.

Going to a baby naming ceremony tomorrow at 8 AM. I don't want to wake up that early but they will probably be serving gambian doughnuts...

“In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil...and I will go on with my drawing" Van Gogh

D the Sea Cow
Wolof class notes. Obvi.

la la la.

I naan

Water bags! They save us from drinking fecal coliforms. Mmmmm water bags.

Went to Fajara beach today by myself. It was lovely. Now re-learning coastal ecology for Christy's lecture about aquifers, dunes, beaches, and erosion. I get to draw diagrams on the board tomorrow!

Rock the Calabash

My awesome calabash bowl/wall hanging.

Wiki: "Hollowed out and dried calabashes are a very typical utensil in households across West Africa. They are used to clean rice, carry water and also as food containers. Smaller sizes are used as bowls to drink palm-wine. Calabashes are used by some musicians in making the kora (a harp-lute), xalam/ngoni (a lute) and the goje (a traditional fiddle)."

best day evahhhhhhh

Went to Bijilo Forest Park in the morning because the Ecology class had to do a lab there. Bijilo is known for its monkeys that come right up to you and basically search you for food because they are used to having tourists feed them. Which is bad. So don't do it. While the students were filling out their sheets I walked straight to the beach. As soon as I got to the sand this girl sees me from about 40 meters away and starts walking towards me. She sits down next to me and just stares and then talks about how pretty my hair and face are for about 10 minutes. She pet my head. Then she wrote "Megan is a pretty lady" in the sand. She gave me her Gambian name, Fatima, so that we would be twins. I was trying not to think about SWF so I was happy when some other students showed up. When they finished their lab they took off on the bus and the SMCM kids stayed behind. Christy and I got separated from them going to the beach which was probably the best thing that ever happened because we ended up in an African hotel oasis. We charmed our way...okay..we asked nicely, if we could go buy a drink from the restaurant inside this super swanky resort full of white people who think they are visiting Africa but really they just stay in this tourist bubble of palm trees and cabana boys.

I think I about died when I saw the poolS and fountains and cabanas and fruity drinks and delicious french fries. We had our fantas and then said "well....can we swim and then order lunch after........." And in this way we infiltrated the tubabs. We were so obviously not supposed to be there because 1. We were in field pants and sweating our asses off. 2. We were hauling a shit ton of stuff around 3. I kept squealing, Christy kept saying "this is AWESOME," and I took about 50 pictures of the pool. There was a swim up bar. If Jesus designed pools he would have designed this one. We just did a 5 hour rotation of read, tan, swim, (eat pineapple pizza) read, tan, swim. I also purchased many sweet craft items from a guy who also named me Fatu (short for Fatuma); I've been named Fatu three times now so I think it's official. On the way home I got a normally 75 dalasis taxi ride for 20 D's because I talked to the driver and his friend about clubbing at WOW. Win.

Us at the pool bar
The dead squid I found on the beach
This is class time. You are jealous of our classroom.

Fatima & me. She said "Awww black and white...it's so beautiful"

I ate pizza today.

That's pretty much the only significant thing I did.

OH! And I picked up my skirts from the tailor. It costs $4 for one wrap skirt. Sweet deal.

Must take pictures.

TIA

I went to Abuko today with the intention of doing vegetation surveys with Katie. Christy went ahead to the Darwin Center and called 20 minutes later telling us that Malang, the director, was feeling really ill and was going to be helped over to the accomodations where we were sitting. One of the 2 workers at Abuko shows up to the "house" and we stand up to look for Malang. He was sitting crumpled on the ground at the edge of the forest in his best clothes (Friday is the holy day). Yusman unlocked the house and then went back and helped lift Malang off the ground. He collasped onto the concrete floor right after he got inside. Katie and I got an air mattress and Malang could barely crawl onto it. He had all the symptoms of malaria. Yusman even said it's malaria and he knows about every animal and plant in that forest so I believe him when he says something. It's really hard to watch a grown man writhe in pain. He didn't want to tell his family he was sick, just as he didn't tell them he felt bad that morning, because he didn't want to worry his kids. But Katie called his wife so that someone could bring his medical forms over to the park. While the kids were bringing the forms, Yusman walked out to the main highway to try and convince a taxi to drive up to the park on the unpaved sand roads. Three of Malang's kids showed up and they looked scared and it was terrible because the girls were trying not to cry. Malaria sucks. He told his kids just to go back home but they wouldn't leave or say anything. When a cab came we walked Malang out to the brick wall and helped him over it and got him in the taxi. But then the taxi wouldn't start so Yusman and the four of us tubabs were trying to push this taxi out of the sand. We kept pushing and pushing and finally it started. We gave him money for the cab ride and the clinic because otherwise I don't think he would be able to get treatment. All the money he makes from St. Mary's goes to his kids' education and he doesn't really have any left over after that.

After the whole two hour ordeal the four of us were just sitting there so exhausted in every way. We just locked everything up and went home without doing any research. Hopefully he gets better soon.

Ahaha I miss this <3333333

The President Doctor Professor

Well, I didn't work today. I went to the stadium with everyone else to see the presentation of the World Cup. The preparations started at 11AM and we got there at 2:30. The stadium was swarming with all the vendors, school kids, and the entire army walking around. We got some good seats and proceeded to sit there for three hours while a "deejay," some music acts, and kids with soccer balls performed to keep up entertained. They played one popular song on repeat for half an hour. Ice cream bags and ground nuts were purchased. It was probably around 110 degrees and as I sat there melting into myself I kept having really vivid daydreams of clubbing in Adams Morgan during winter. I think it made me less hot for about 3 minutes. At 5:30 the President's posse finally rolled up. A huge group of dancers/cheerers entered first, followed by army trucks, his stretch Hummer, and some more army trucks. The whole group circled the track three times while the President stuck his head out of the Hummer sun roof and threw biscuits to people in the stands. The "cheerers" had to keep running the whole time and eventually some of them started to faint. Quite a few had to be carried off the track by the medics. When the President actually approaching the stage, huge clouds rolled in and it became really dark. Rainy season is not over. Then the wind came and blew away the red carpet, balloons, people. So after three hours of waiting we dipped out before even seeing the cup. We got caught in a dust storm - trash hitting you in the face, glasses flying, sand in mouth. Then we got caught in the rain so I was just mud colored by the time I got to Happy Camp. Lamine did pass us as we were walking in the rain though and we fit 10 people in his 5 person jeep.

It was neat to experience how excited the country was today. Sitting in the stands listening to drums and weird performers with thousands of Gambians was kind of surreal. And running in the dust storm was actually entertaining/thrilling because one minute I was sitting there preparing myself for a boring presidential speech and then I'm running barefoot, blinded by sand, and covered in trashbags.

School Time

The Cup is Here

This afternoon is a government holiday and classes are cancelled because the World Cup is in the country. Just the actual cup...This is why nothing gets done here.

Hmm what a coincidence. Yesterday during language class I learned how to say "Where is the cup?" in Wolof - "Ana kaas bi?"

ANA KAAS BI!?

Also:

Yangi rafet: You are beautiful.

Mangi feebar: I am sick.

Going to do more poop collection today

picture box

Arabian TV is the weirdest shit I have ever seen.

BUT I found a channel called "Infinity" that plays American sitcoms! Friends, Scrubs, and Gilmore Girls so far.

Mangi cool

Before I got sick, Christy and I had dinner with the other tenants in the apartment owner's home because it was the 1st birthday of Cherry, the son of our Indian neighbors. He is so cute and loves Pringles...that's pretty much all I know about him. But his mom, Modu, cooked for everyone and we got to eat it in the owner's air conditioned house and drink bottled water which was amazing. I like that she calls me Auntie. I met one of the other younger tenants who works at a casino (i have no idea where there is a casino), and he had just gotten back from his first visit to the United States to go to a wedding in Minnesota. yay Minnesota?

Today I got to take my "sample" to the doctor, so hopefully I'll find out what I have soon enough.

sick

I'm ill. Severe stomach pain and vomitting. Had to go to a clinic today with another sick student. It was the saddest looking clinic I've ever seen. I got some anti vomit pills, antibiotics, and a safe sex lecture from the only doctor working in the whole place.

So fresh and so clean clean....not

I heart my birthday photo but it also makes me sad because I'm so clean and shiny. Now i'm just perpetually sweaty and gross.

Needing to take three showers a day is really bizarre.

Dancers